buggy about books...

PLEASE NOTE: I have a backlog of storytime themes and activities from my first month on the job that I would like to document here; please pardon the dust as I try to catch up. :)

It's getting to the point where it's almost painful to look back at these storytimes... I can see in my setlists how panicked I was about it!

This particular week, we were reading bug books. I had no idea how many books featured bugs as their main characters - there were tons of great books to choose from! I went with a classic and a crack-up... I think it went pretty well. :)

Here's the Setlist*:

Hello Song: 'Hello Everybody'

Welcome - I asked the kids how many different kinds of bugs they could name and if they had a favorite. We talked about where bugs live and what they eat... which was the perfect transition to our first book (and wiggles). :)

Wiggles - I usually do a specific 'wiggle' order... but it seemed fun to work in the bugs this week, so we wiggled our fingers like antennae, rubbed our legs like grasshoppers, moved our arms like spiders, and wiggled all around like we had ants in our pants!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

We have a large boardbook version of this story and most of the kids had heard it before... which was actually nice, because there were parts where they were ready to just join in ('but he was *still* hungry.'). The craft I came up with for this storytime was a colorful caterpillar-like creature and so it was good to talk about all the beautiful colors and get some inspiration from those illustrations.

Song: 'There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly'
Some people might be able to just read this story straight, but I couldn't do it! :D I just sang and sang. I did make the lyrical adjustments for "perhaps she'll die" - we sang "it made her cry". I had a puppet (pretty creepy looking, but it did the job) and stuffed animals to work with, so each child got to stuff something into the old lady's gullet.

Song: 'Shoo Fly'
Shoo, fly - don't bother me...
Shoo, fly - don't bother me...
Shoo, fly - don't bother me...
I belong to somebody!

We had fun with this as I made flies for everyone to use! We had the flies land on different parts of our bodies (head, knee, shoulder, belly, nose) and started the song over again.

Aaaarrgghh! Spider! by Lydia Monks

Best part of this story? Yelling. Yelling "Aaaarrgghh! Spider!" is hysterically funny. The spider in this book is darling and I love how the story makes us sympathize with her plight to try and make herself attractive to the family she wants to join. But the yelling was still the best.




Song: 'The (Eeensy Weensy) Itsy Bitsy (Big Giant) Spider'
Again, hysterically funny (sensing a theme here? lol). I informed my young friends that the Itsy Bitsy Spider had a little brother (the Eeensy Weensy Spider) and a *big* brother (the Big Giant Spider). We proceded to sing the sony eens-ily, its-ily, and bigly... with gestures and voices to match. I could barely contain my laughter at the end... little ones using deep voices? Hi-larious.

I Love Bugs! by Emma Dodd
I probably didn't really have time for this book, but I squeezed it in anyway because I figured it would be good inspiration for the craft. It's a quick read with fun pictures and the descriptions of the bugs without really naming them was really neat.





Craft: Build-a-Bug
We have a stockpile of 1/2 inch circles of contruction paper. I gave each child six circles (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) but also put out a basket of the circles in case they wanted to trade for more of any color. I also gave the each a short length of pipe cleaner (bent in on each end so as not to poke!), a green popsicle stick, and (can you guess?) googly eyes!** I called it 'Build-a-Bug', but they all pretty much looked like caterpillars. :D

Goodbye Song: 'The More We Get Together'

As you can imagine, this storytime sort of went OVER time. :) It was my second and the one the week before seemed too short. Overcorrected here, but had a lot of fun!

* I call my storytime plans "Setlists" because I actually carry a half sheet of paper into the Story Room with me to remind me what I'm doing. It's all keyword/notes, so that's what it looks like to me - a setlist. And, "setlist" cracks me up. We're rockstars! :D

** - I changed the craft for the 2-3 year olds by having them put their bugs in a jar (clipart)... seemed easier for little hands. They had fun, too!